


Survivor's Guilt

by softestsky



Category: Wolf 359 - Fandom
Genre: Character Study, Gen, I'm a sucker for Captain Lovelace, ends with the end of bolero
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-12 22:51:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11171745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softestsky/pseuds/softestsky
Summary: The first time Isabel Lovelace died she was eight years old.She's died twice now. She's been a captain and a leader and a friend, she hopes, but above all she's been a survivor. Isabel Lovelace reflects on life, death, and rebirth.Part of the Wolf 359 Big Bang.





	Survivor's Guilt

The first time Isabel Lovelace died she was eight years old. 

It was a shimmering hot summer day. She remembers the shouts and giggles of children, carried on the chlorine-scented air above the neighborhood swimming pool. She was wearing her navy blue swimsuit with sleek white lines, which she liked best because it was the one that made her look like an undersea explorer. Her friend Viola was there too, wearing a glittery two-piece. Viola said she liked her swimsuit because it made her look like a mermaid princess. 

They had a game that they played, the mermaid and the explorer. Viola would hold her nose and sink down to the bottom of the pool to sit cross-legged on the aquamarine tile, her long braids drifting in the current in beautifully serene manner. Isabel would stand on the side of the pool and dive down in an attempt to capture the elusive mermaid before she swam away. 

She remembers light and water, noise and joy. She remembers dive after dive until it all blurs together. She does not remember the moment when her head smacked against the bottom of the pool. She does not remember the confusion of struggling to rise, water pouring into her lungs. She does not remember drowning. 

Her heart was stopped for two minutes and thirty-three seconds. Later, everyone would marvel at this. Viola was witness to the whole thing, and eagerly told the story whenever Isabel asked. “It was so scary,” she would exclaim. “They pulled you out of the water, and I thought you were dead!” 

“I was dead,” Isabel would interrupt. 

“Sure, but you weren't dead dead,” Viola would say. “They brought you back, didn't they? That lifeguard with the green eyes, he gave you mouth to mouth. On the mouth!” 

“Where else would you give someone mouth to mouth? On the elbow?” Isabel asked, and Viola giggled madly, and their conversation moved on to other things. 

Still, the experience stayed in Isabel Lovelace’s mind as she grew older. There was more of an urgency, an intensity about her. She worked with everything she had; first it was basketball, and she would have gone pro if not for the car accident that ruined her knee for good. After that it was the air force. Her father was worried for her, going into such a potentially dangerous line of work, but her mother convinced him to let her go. “Look at what she's been through already,” she said. “Isabel’s a survivor, and she's going to do great things, I just   
know it.” 

The air force didn't work out that well either. Captain Isabel Lovelace had a reputation for competence, but also for disobedience. When men in suits talked down to her she talked back. She tried to teach herself to play by the rules, to listen to orders and nod and smile and ignore the subtle comments about her race or gender that she encountered. “Why did you decide to join the military?” they would ask. “You're not the usual type, are you? Is your family poor? Do you have a boyfriend back home?” Sometimes the orders she received were so incredibly stupid that she had to disobey them. She saved lives like that, but she didn't earn much respect from her superiors. 

She had never considered spaceflight until the Greensboro screening. Sometimes she wonders what would have happened if she declined that opportunity and stayed on Earth, but it's always an aimless regret. The moment the position was mentioned she knew she would take it. Nothing could have kept her from the stars. 

She commanded the Hephaestus. She survived. She survived when every one of the people she was responsible for died. Each innocent crew member was- still is- a voice in her head, a spot of blood on her hands, a constant presence behind her. Don't look back, she told herself. Be a big girl and don't look back at them, because then you'll crumble. Instead, move forward. Out into the darkness of space. Away from the Hephaestus. As she fell into cryosleep Isabel Lovelace though only of revenge. 

But the universe had more in store for her. 

The second time Isabel Lovelace died was many years later. 

Their little revolution was failing. She and Doug Eiffel were captives, hands bound and helpless before Colonel Kepler. His anger was quiet, more dangerous than any blustering rage she'd seen before. There was a steely glint in his eyes. She knew what the look on his face meant. One of them was going to die that day, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. 

“Eeny meeny miney moe.”

Playing chess is all about anticipating your opponent’s next move. It's about sacrificing something now that will pay off later. 

“Catch a tiger by the toe” 

Goddammit, she doesn't want to die. She wants to survive. She wants it so much more that what she knows she needs to do. 

“If he hollers let him go.” 

There is Eiffel beside her, face white, and she can't let someone else die on her watch. 

“Eeny meeny miney-”

“Fuck you.” 

She tells Kepler exactly what she thinks of him, with the wild joy of a woman with nothing left to lose. Maybe her death will allow Minkowski and Eiffel to get back to Earth safe. Maybe they'll exact a bit of revenge in memory of her. Maybe it doesn't matter. 

She is looking Kepler right in the eye when he sends the bullet through her brain. 

 

The first thing she becomes aware of is her breath, of the long gasps of air entering her lungs. Her heart beats steadily. Her limbs tingle like she's been taken apart and put back together again. She can’t see anything, no matter how hard she strains her eyes; her ears are similarly empty. Claustrophobic panic clutches her. A jumble of thoughts push their way through her brain. Something is wrong. Something is very, very wrong. 

When she woke up by the pool that summer day to the loud voices of people crowding around her, feeling weak and a step out of sync with her own body, she knew things were different. The smell of narrowly averted danger hung in the air. She felt her fragile mortality in each shuddering breath she took. She knew that she was human. 

And now, as her vision clears to reveal the unmistakable iron-grey walls of the ship she can't seem to escape, Captain Isabel Lovelace knows- somehow- that she is something more.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Survivor's Guilt](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11187282) by [seventeencrows](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventeencrows/pseuds/seventeencrows)




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